I’ve been a nurse for 5 years. I truly love my job and enjoy doing it. I’m in medsurg. I thought with time I’d find my calling but have not. I am very fortunate to work 2 jobs in great hospitals. With that said I hope this doesn’t offend anyone.
But I’m tired of working two jobs and am ready to find something else and be able to pay my bills without having to work this many hours. Yes nursing salary is great but have a lot of other outstanding debt and am wanting to not stress.
I'm at a cross roads... do I go back to school? (Take on my more debt). If I do what route do I take? I’ve talked to many NPs and other nurses who have received their masters. Still having a hard time figuring it out.
Or are there any certifications I can take to increase my salary? I’ve looked into medical sales and slightly looked into nursing consult work?
You can't make 6 figures as a RN in my area unless you've worked maybe 20+ years. If I worked a 3rd shift ER program, I could make around $92,000/year because of the differential. There are limits to overtime too.
A NP could make six figures.
Oh wow. You can literally work all you want here. Most I’ve done is 8 days in a row but my friend cosistently does 12-15 in a row. She makes over 150k gross and she’s been a nurse maybe 2 years now.
How it works where I am is
Nursing base pay 27.50/hr (for me)
5.00/ hr night shift diff
3.25/hour afternoon shift diff
Time and a half over 40 hrs
10.00 per hr shift diff for emergency pay (every shift picked up)
20.00 per hr shift diff for emergency pay (rare now, used to be pretty common)
30.00 per hr extra shift diff for emergency pay (rare)
I have found most employers in the extended care home health area to be very anal about refusing to authorize overtime. Instead they utilize a phoney “employee election” scam to browbeat home care nurses to work longer than eight hours on a shift without state mandated overtime rates. Very difficult, therefore, to make bank around here.
Coming from someone who did medical devices prior to nursing school...don't do that. The travel was awful and there are so many things with that that aren't going to be a long term solution for you. That field is full of turn over. Long term plan, yeah grad school is great. Short term plan: move. Move to a higher paying area (west coast) and get a job at a university hospital that will pay a significant if not most of your expenses to go back to school when you're ready. So many posts giving you crap for needing to work two jobs, which is ridiculous. Sometimes thats how it is. No one on here knows what your debt is (or what area you are living/working in) and most nurses I've known before I moved had to work two jobs or live with roommates, and they also worked at great hospitals that were considered high paying for our area in a large city. Most of my coworkers who have worked in other states, specifically Florida, often have told me they had to do this as they got paid garbage. This was my biggest concern coming out of school in the midwest. I moved immediately to the west coast and got a job at university hospital that pays for grad school. I make almost* 6 figures working 36 hours a week only (my housing is cheaper here than it would have been had I stayed in the midwest) and I am a fairly new nurse, so don't let anyone tell you on here that its not doable.
Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.
I have my MSN in Nursing Education and I work in a hospital as a nurse educator. I have been a nurse for 8 years and I make over the six figure mark base salary in DFW, which has a low cost of living. I have zero debt from getting my MSN due to letting my employer pay for it and I was able to complete it while working full time.
@Nurse SMS that’s what I am doing to. I get a lot of crap because I am doing an associates program RN, but guess what I am going to be walking out with zero debt because financial aid is paying for it and plus there are a lot of workforce programs through the government who also help with funding like for books. But yeah where I am at it doesn’t matter associates or bachelors we both get hired equally and same Pay. After I graduate I am going to do WGU RN-MSN latter and I’ll have my MSN in 2 years. I am happy with the choice I made because it’s going to be cheaper in the end and my employer said they would pay for the bridge program for me. I tell people who are going for nursing you don’t have to go to a bachelors program an ADN will get you where you need and most of the time the employer will pay for your completion
@Nurse SMS that’s what I am doing to. I get a lot of crap because I am doing an associates program RN, but guess what I am going to be walking out with zero debt because financial aid is paying for it and plus there are a lot of workforce programs through the government who also help with funding like for books. But yeah where I am at it doesn’t matter associates or bachelors we both get hired equally and same Pay. After I graduate I am going to do WGU RN-MSN latter and I’ll have my MSN in 2 years. I am happy with the choice I made because it’s going to be cheaper in the end and my employer said they would pay for the bridge program for me. I tell people who are going for nursing you don’t have to go to a bachelors program an ADN will get you where you need and most of the time the employer will pay for your completion
Usually the amount employers pay is capped at some low amount like 1400 a year.
klone, MSN, RN
14,857 Posts
How much do you make an hour? How many hours a week do you work?